Diamond Dogs is my personal favourite Bowie Album and Sweet Thing/Candidate is my favourite song. It would have been interesting to hear how this would have worked with Ronno and the Spiders. The demo of 1984/Dodo on the Sound and Vision box set is a clue. Honestly, I think the music on DD is better than they could have produced. I really love David’s gnarly dissonant guitar work and the atmospheric synths/mellotron sets up a wonderful soundscape. I think having to carry the music to such a great extent really made this an album that was truly all him (Jagger pastiches notwithstanding!)
Uh, because the image behind him, with the women, is supposed to be a carnival poster. The Bowie-dog is in front of the poster.
It’s one to which I’ve rarely given much thought over the years. Recently, though, I’ve acquired the Who Can I Be Now? Box set and started listening to it properly and it’s actually much better than I remembered when I bought the Rykodisc in the nineties. The odd thing is that it feels like a missing link between Ziggy and Aladin Sane even though it came out after both of them.
Agreed. One of the many reasons why Diamond Dogs is my favorite, too. The primitive, dissonant guitars. Bowie knew he wasn't the most technically proficient guitar player so after parting ways with Ronson he just shifted to using it as a textural and atmospheric instrument. In my mind it makes Diamond Dogs Bowie's first foray into the musical experimentalism that carried through to the Berlin trilogy.
One of bowies master pieces but sound quality on this album 96khz 24bit is dreadfull shm cd is far superior
One thing I hate about the Time track on aladin sane is the distorted guitar on the right channel it spoils the track which is class
It was all very Clockwork Orange to me as well, kind of a melding of the sensibilities of Orwell, Burgess and Bowie (and even some William Burroughs). Lots of menacing synth, and just an overall air of grimy danger and glam unease. Lots of dark, foreboding corners in the mix. I would've loved to have heard how Ronno and the Spiders would've approached making DD, but it might have come out too polished.
Pretty great, worth recommending for me. Recent listening sessions have made me appreciate it far more than I used to. I don't know what changed... The title track, Sweet Thing and We Are The Dead are all such good songs. But the real highlights for me are the last three tracks. My god, the vocal performance on Big Brother is one of his very best imo and then it perfectly segues into the Chant... The only 'negative' thing about such a great album is that its lead single Rebel Rebel pales in comparison with the other tracks for me. Don't get me wrong, it is a nice track. But compared to a lot of other songs on the album it's somewhere in the middle.
IMO, Rebel is the weakest track on it - and not at all down to over-familiarity. That song is so repetitive and really outstays its welcome. I wish there was a two and a half minute edit that I could replace it with. The riff does sound great though, straight after the stalling of Sweet Thing (Reprise).
The only cut on DD I don't really care for is "Rock And Roll With Me", which always struck me as kinda rote rock. "Rebel Rebel" I love as much now as I did as a kid. Leaves me bouncing off the walls.
I was never a huge fan of "Rebel Rebel" when I only knew it as a single. But I really enjoy it in the context of the album proper.
Two days ago I was having a bad day. So bad that I was still awake at 3:00am, with no sleep in sight. I was sat on the couch, and I reached over and put on the Diamond Dogs album. Talk about hitting the right note at the right time. I wasn't happy, and this album digs right down there, before exploding with joy in Rebel Rebel. Amazing experience with a very, very, good album.
There is so much music to listen for in this album, it might be called, "Bowie's revenge." He is proving he alone is the reason for his success, not the backing band. Listen throughout this album for all the synth and keyboard touches provided by Bowie, except for piano, which was Garson.
A listen to Ronson's "Slaughter On 10th Avenue" (also made just after the end of the Spiders) gives one a good idea about how that might have sounded.
I have the album and I enjoy it a lot. Never connected it up myself, but it does have a lot of similarity to Diamond Dogs. Interesting.
Yes, though there is no "concept" around the album, Slaughter has a similar melodramatic, theatrical feel to it, as well as notions of tragic destiny. Sonically, Rono takes his album futher however with some very rich arrangements, coloured with his magnificent guitar and Mick Garson piano parts. Bowie haunts the album of course with two compositions plus the English lyrics to "Music Is Lethal". I was never sure about "Love Me Tender" as the opener though and only this week, I made myself as CDR which works better: Only After Dark Growing Up And I'm Fine Slaughter On 10th Avenue Pleasure Man / Hey Ma, Get Papa Love Me Tender I'm The One Music Is Lethal Solo On 10th Avenue
Rock n Roll With Me falls a bit flat... but the rest is gold. From that line which starts it all (this ain't rock n' roll... this is... genocide!) to the final piece, it's classic Bowie. Drug-driven, decadent, innovative, creative Bowie. To me, this one really started his very best run, reaching up to Scary Monsters.
I bought SO10A in a record shop rummage. Never listened to it yet but tempted to give it a go on resding these comments. I quite like Play Don’t Worry, but it’s never been in regular rotation.
I like it a lot but I find it gets slightly weak towards the end,I've always found We Are The Dead and 1984 just ok,I prefer the David Live Version of Big Brother and think Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family seems hugely anticlimactic. Having said that when you got songs like the title track,Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing(reprise) and Rebel Rebel on it,its still a very worthy album. Also there is a 33 1/3 book due in out in November which looks Promising
